MVP Summit 2008 - Part 4

Wed 16th April

Wow. MSDN Library online has sure come a long way. This is the Wiki group that we have been talking to for the last 3 years.

Steve and Clayton (right) update us on the wiki. Steve is the guy who lead the open discussion on MSDN WIki last year.

Amazing
growth. Late 2007 MS turned on community editing of MSDN (also
introduced incremental updates of the TOC). A massive spike in number
of pages. They are now approaching the size of WikiPedia which
is...something like 40 million pages?

We also talked
about Tag Clouds and how useful they are. Clicking the tags keeps
narrowing down your hits. Hover over a tag shows you how many tags
there are of that name. Currently they gave text size representing the
size of the tag usage. Next version will have same sized text but
stronger/lighter blue color. Also coming up in the next version - UI Refresh;- TelerikEditor; Very nice online editor.- Flag a bug; Simply adds the the BugSummited or some such tag.

- TOC Based scoping for RSS feeds.

- MVP Badges.

The non-MS
community sections must be marked clearly for legal reasons. So green
sections are community. See the tag cloud (top right)?

There is a
edit box at the bottom (in a green section) where anyone can post a
community comment; report a bug; write a mini article. MVPs can be
editors and moderators (coming soon). But looks like anyone can edit at
the moment. You can correct/edit each others works as
well. Seems to be no big problem with spammers. The community monitors
the system using RSS feeds and delete spam as soon as it arrives.

Legally they
can't package up the community comments with MSDN. I think there is a
packager app somewhere though. WM Metrix is an internal tool they use
to look at stats of posting. Steve has been with the Wiki team for
around 3 years.

WorkPlace: - Extends the whole concept. Will bring MVPs in as first class contributors. Can post and edit top level articles.

We looked at
MSDN Library 3.0 - Looked at Silverlight mockups and plans. WPF gives
richer look. More meshing of ideas (collaboration).I think they said their would be a way to roll up all community feedback.

11:00-12:30 Help - Office Online in Office 14 and above (Bld41:2585)

Office 14 Beta - This UA group is in charge of online
things such as - File>New Templates; Clipart/UA. Notice there is no
office 13 (unlucky number for some).

Dana with Tali and Noaa

There was quite a few Office 14 prople there.

Good interaction.

13:30-15:00 Help - Furture of Help for ITPro's (Bld41:2585)

Charles and team talk to us about Server UA. Good 2 way conversation. Everyone is interested in Web 2.0 (Collaboration).

Charles Freeman - Group Content Publishing Manager

Charles in the middle.

STB (Server and Tools Business)

Complex today - > 20 different server products.

Charles had a series of different questions asking mainly about colaboration (again these groups need to talk to one another).

Paul talking to ?

There were 2 other guys in the meeting. They were STB UA writers as I remember.

15:30-17:00 Help - Furture of Help for ITPro's (Bld41:2585)

So this was a time just talking to Paul. We were all
tired but I think agreed it was good making connections with the
various groups and we felt we were off to a good start with Aprils
group.

When Aprils group was up and running, a Help Summit
would be good. April thought this was a good idea too when we brought
it up the day before. And also get the ISVs along.

Action: Rob - New Discussion Group

We agreed to have setup a new MVP + Help MS HelpX and UA
people discussion group. This would be just for MVPs. Also April was
happy to get access to the HelpMVP.COM wiki. Either of these mechanisms
could be used for better contact between HelpEx team and Help MVPs.
April seemed to be please to have a way to contact us and ask more
questions.

I was pushing for a Google group. I'm seeing more value
in Google groups (compared to Yahoo). Char prefers Yahoo but graciously
agreed to give a Google Group a go. And we would basically setup a new
Wiki with HelpMVP.com for NDA only.

Attendee Part at EMP (Experience Music Project)

Food, Live band, Museum of music and scifi. etc

EMP is next to The Space Needle. It was setup by Paul
Allen (MS Founder) and has an amazing collection of Music and SciFi
"stuff".

The theater was setup with giant screen + XBOX + Guitar hero. Actually this Rock Band Software I think. The musicians need to follow the screen instructions and play along. That's Kathy Lee (Asian lead) on drums.

In the main hall (enormous) they had a real rock band and MVPs could get up and sing.

Robbie the Robot + The Robot from Lost in Space

Actually these Roberts were halarious. They were talking to each other. Obviously a highlight of the collection.

Another shot of the Band. Notice the enormous back drop (had a moving image).